The Dave and Raewyn's do's of RV life we have discovered

Some handy hints that we discovered

Firstly I would like to point out that points included should be taken experiences that we have encountered and what may have worked for us may not be practicable in all cases. Now that the disclaimer is up let's get started.

Prior to purchase

Now that you have narrowed it down to one or two RV's 

• Take the time to inspect your potential purchase get faults fixed then check and check again. The car salesman reputation applies at RV sales centers too you know. Besides they just need to move units.
• get up on the roof and under the RV. Climb in the pass through and look at the command center, you know that area under the shower that has everything that makes it livable in shitty weather if you cant access it then ask to have the panels removed so that you can see and test it all. Hot water, furnace and the back of the refrigerator
• Check out the frame, suspension, brakes and tires. In particular check out the date of the tires as they don't age like an Aussie Shiraz.
• Get up on the roof, loose the shoes and climb up and check out the rubber membrane for any leaks
• Check the outer walls for de-lamination, that is to say the laminated walls are starting to come apart. Usually can be identified as bulges in what would otherwise be a flat surface
• Did I mention to run the furnace, AC and refrigerator, water pump and anything else you can find?
• Run all jacks

Within the warranty period

Test all of the above as soon as possible as you might find yourself taking it back as we did with a auto-leveling jack fault and during this time you will get a feel as to how the RV pulls when empty (dry).

I guess at this point you will need to load the RV up

This is where the arguments happen and is a test of a relationship and is discussed in a latter blog.

Let me tell you about British Columbia

 Musings about British Columbia

Let me tell you about my experiences with living in southern British Columbia. Please bear with me this page eventually gets back on to the RV topic.

The first time we moved to Oliver, BC

We moved to Oliver in April to work for a winery as I had previously worked in viticulture in Victoria, Australia. 

Yarra Burn Victoria, Australia

I worked for a winery in Oliver, BC, and while the work was similar to Yarra Burn there seemed to be a hierarchy. More than just the chain of command. The "ol'e boy" system that exists in England and to a lesser degree in Australia is alive and well here in southern BC at least.

Yarra Burn was a great place to work, I actually enjoyed my work and the views rolling hills and temperate rainforest. The winery in Oliver included the same kind of work, I was operations manager, which means I basically managed the machinery used in the operation of a vineyard.

So while the work was similar the work ethic and the attitude towards employees is completely different.   

Here in southern British Columbia (the Okanagan and the East Kootenay regions) are the regions that have the mildest climate by Canadian standards. So these regions have typically medium industrial , commercial and alot of hospitality due the amount of tourism in the area. Increased tourism generally will mean low paying jobs and this is what you will get in these areas. I mean the average hourly rate seems to be around $20 - $27 p/hour. which is certainly a meager wage in an area with expensive housing and cost of living when compared to other areas.

Second time in the East Kootenay

Employers in others areas seem to be fine with asking you to do additional work that will be unpaid. I was a bit miffed at this as it does not benefit me financially at all, actually it seems that employees feel grateful for the privilege of being able to work. When I queried a fellow employee they said it was normal and that it's just part of the "sunshine tax" 

Pretty as a picture just don't work there

 The "sunshine tax" It's more a case of tight-assed small/medium companies in a position to screw over it's locals who have limited options of employment.

If you are new to this blog please subscribe and comment.

 Either positive or negative let me know what you think.

  

Plans for 2021

As seems you can't make a living in Southern BC, anything substantial anyway. we will be possibly heading north again and maybe even wintering in Northern Alberta, this should allow us to eventually winter in the States not withstanding COVID border restrictions.

Raewyn, hasn't experienced the Northern Lights and you need to be up north in the winter to see them in their full spender.

We are currently looking for a heated shed for the winter that will fit our RV and perhaps a car or two. Now this is a task as you could imagine they would be fairly highly sought after. The RV park that we stayed at had some dedicated heated sheds for this purpose. There not cheap but they are a cheaper option than renting a house or a unit as we have animals to consider. 

That's interesting eh? a heated shed for your RV. Not something you would need to consider when living in an RV and Australia has a lot of "grey nomads" full timing and living on the road.

We do figure that 18 to 24 months in the oilfield will be sufficient to catch up financially and to have enough to finally get down south for a work-free winter finally.

I don't get the differences in pay rates in different provinces across Canada. I mean I can understand the differences in mining industry work and other work but similar employment between provinces? It seems to me that in British Columbia people think that $20 p/hour is a reasonable wage when based on the cost of living it should be more like at least $25 p/hour. People here just laugh it off and say it's the "sunshine tax". That's Southern BC for ya'. Don't get me wrong I mean it's not a pretty place and were here as we didn't want to winter unprepared in northern Alberta. It's just the wages, they suck! 

So in all, Rocky Pines RV "resort" is serving it's purpose even if it's located on the side of an unstable hill and I mean unstable as we have had to adjust the leveling jacks on occasion up until the ground started to freeze. They do include a carpark for people here who's vechicles cant get up the hill to their RV's.

Rocky Pines RV Park

We were lucky to get that site as there are alot of RV'ers that cant get south. On the plus side they do have fast internet. The sites electricity is currently un-metered (they have slapped an additional $100 on top of the site fees of  $600 so we have switched as much as possible over to electricity, even bought an additional heater or two to save on propane usage.

So as the moment we are looking leaving on or around mid March.

Hi, if you have gotten this far please subscribe to receive updates and feel free to comment.

 

Cranbrook, British Columbia

Life in Cranbrook, British Columbia 

We arrived in Cranbrook late October to enjoy the remainder of the warm weather. Rocky Pines RV park is located on the eastern end of Cranbrook just off highway 3.

Rocky Pines RV Park was not our first or second choice for that matter. Cranbrook is not as touristy as Fernie which is just down the road but has a bigger population, we were hoping to spend winter on Vancouver Island but most sites were already booked out due to the Canada/US border being closed. The snowbirds need to go somewhere I guess, as it turns out Cranbrook was a better choice for picking up work quickly.

Cranbrook's main industry is logging and tourism and meth production. The last one is a judgment based on the amount of "tweakers" spotted while driving through town.

Since my time in Canada, I have found that working in BC seems to be treated as a privilege as most employers pay as little as possible and expect far too much for free. Locals just laugh this off and say that it's the "sunshine tax". I guess that is why my bias lies with Alberta.  

Rocky Pines RV Park is on the side of a hill where all the RV spaces are all cramped together with only dead pine trees for shelter. The park does have surprisingly fast internet speed that has a relatively good uptime. All sites have 30 and 50 amp power, water and sewer mounted conveniently halfway on the edge of each site. None of the sites have meters so each site has an additional one hundred on top of the six hundred per month for the site so it's a case of running as much as possible on electricity.   

As the RV park was landscaped in 2019 with power going in 2020, there is no laundromat (construction started in late 2020 with the intended opening in the first half of 2021. There are two laundromats in Cranbrook, a conventional laundromat complete with homeless and tweakers and a drop-off service.

Our first winter

Upon setting our RV at the park we had to look at skirting our RV for the winter and organizing a few 90 Lb. propane bottles. It is an obligation or a condition of wintering at this RV park that you skirt your RV with either a custom skirt or with wooden framing with insulation foam. While this is a common practice it seems wasteful to spend three hundred or so on materials only to give it away when we leave in mid March 2021. 

The general consensus is that skirting is necessary for sub zero camping. We have found that our cougar is good for minus 10 degrees C, we did find that the floor was cold even though the heating was set to 20 degC.

The median temperature in Cranbrook for December are supposedly around minus 5 degC but of late it's been around minus 6 at night to -2 to plus 6 degC I did some work under the trailer and did notice it was significantly warmer so I believe the skirting even in these mild temperatures would be saving in heating costs.

We found that at temperatures above minus 15 degC we have to turn down the furnace as the two small space heaters are sufficient to maintain an average temperature of around 20 degrees inside the RV. There is one distinct advantage  that 5th wheels have over travel trailers (caravans if your an Aussie) is that as the bedroom is the highest point it's generally the warmest room especially when you have a kelpie and a kitty sleeping on you.

Cranbrook, located in the East Kootenay region of British Columbia is similar in climate with The Okanagan which is further to the west. The Okanagan has a higher population with Pentiction and Kelowna both being larger that Cranbrook.